


The Meeting

by badass_normal



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-03
Updated: 2008-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badass_normal/pseuds/badass_normal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellick decides that both Sara and Mahone could use a supportive, "anonymous" ear after their ordeals with Gretchen and Wyatt, respectively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meeting

Sara was still shaking, the ghostly feel of Gretchen's blood still on her fingers, and she thought she might have learned what Lady Macbeth felt like, having washed her hands repeatedly and still feeling stained.

As she headed back into the warehouse, ready to face the men she had come to trust, her comrades, it suddenly occurred to her that she didn't want to. She felt entirely bone-weary at the thought of facing anyone, even Michael. In fact, she really just wanted to curl up and throw up and give up, to sink into the privacy of her boat and just go to sleep until all this was over.

Then one of those men rounded the corner, and for some reason she felt as though she had been caught at her most vulnerable, at the same time that she realized that this was how it ought to be. This was a part of the pact she had made the first time she had sat down at a meeting and introduced herself to the kindred spirits around her.

"Sara?" Brad asked tentatively, cocking his head sympathetically.

And her shoulders sagged and she finally burst into tears. The kind of tears she hadn't, couldn't, shed around Michael, the kind of tears only this man before her could understand. She had heard the familiar, deadly call of her most dangerous love when she had held the morphine syringe in her hand earlier that day, and she remembered that Brad had been there, had probably seen it.

He took a few steps forward and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. For a fleeting moment she remembered his awkward invitation to dinner, before firmly pushing the memory aside, because _so_ much had happened since then, they were so beyond that, and right now he was there to be the kind of friend she needed.

"You're strong, Sara," he told her simply, utterly convinced of her resolve. "One day at a time, one hour, one minute if need be, you'll get through this."

She closed her eyes and allowed the hot tears to stream down her cheeks, free of any embarrassment, because Brad already knew so much about her from their regular meetings that for her to be shy would be ridiculous.

"Come with me," he offered, and she did, she followed him back into the main room, to where all the men stood discussing Wyatt and what to do with him.

Alex stood apart from them, far apart, gripping the table before him and looking like he was on the edge of the ultimate breakdown. And as Brad led her over to him, she suddenly understood his intentions.

"I think maybe we should have a talk, the three of us," Brad said to Alex, and glancing back for Sara's approval. She nodded.

Looking up in surprise, Alex was quick to draw the connection. "I don't know--"

"It'll take your mind off things," Brad assured him.

For the next hour, the three of them sat together. Alex talked about Wyatt, about his son and his wife, about how his rage and desire to cause Wyatt pain and murder him slowly scared him, yet at the same time made all the sense in the world. Sara talked about Gretchen, about her meeting with the other woman, Michelle, the electrical cord Gretchen had offered her to "even the score" with her sad, twisted, misplaced idea of what justice was. And Brad talked about how useless he felt, how he was in over his head, and was living in constant fear of his death.

They talked about the drugs lying around, the desperate need to ease their suffering and fear with their old, treacherous friends. Even if it was tranquilizers for Alex, opiates for Sara, and cocaine for Brad, they all felt the same cravings, the desire that far outweighed anything any of them were capable of feeling.

They talked about the death of Roland. How even though he was a traitor and they had mostly hated them, there might have been a way for them to save him, for them to not have driven him to this point where he had turned to the enemy for the acceptance and appreciation he had never gotten from his supposed allies. How he had reached out to both Sara and Brad on respective occasions and received only the cold shoulder from both of them.

And together they said the serenity prayer. Brad was thirteen years clean, Sara was two months with three years in the rooms, and this was really Alex's first meeting. But they had one thing in common, and they could offer each other comfort. And it was enough to keep them going for the single hours of sobriety they could count.

Sara thought she could maybe tell Michael now about her encounter with Gretchen. Alex moved on quietly to deal with Wyatt. And Brad closed his eyes and congratulated himself on another twelfth step he had completed.

It wasn't co-dependence. It was a give-and-take process. Helping someone else in order to help oneself. A set of shoulders to lean on. And although the three of them would probably never be the best of friends, they would always have someone to watch their backs.

In times like this, they sure as hell needed it.

\--

Later that day, Lincoln, Sucre, and a worn-out, obviously sick Michael arrived back at the warehouse without Brad.

They had to wait a few hours to talk, first dealing with Michael's health issues, letting everyone in on how they managed to con General Krantz into thinking the brothers were dead. But when things had settled, Sara and Alex wordlessly found each other, as if by unspoken agreement, out on the dock.

"I don't think I've processed it," Sara said quietly, after they had sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. "He's--God, it's strange to think about it, but he's been a part of my life for years now. He was the speaker at one of the early meetings I went to. And--well, I never thought I'd be around for his death."

Alex maintained his gaze out over the horizon, the sun setting over the water. "I never even really considered him as much of anything, until earlier today, when he sat us down for that meeting."

She looked at him, and he finally looked back at her. "Accomplishing what he did in the tunnel wasn't his only admirable deed today." She couldn't help but think about what Alex himself had done that day, the torture and murder of Wyatt, and her own horrified reaction to it. But before all else, he was her fellow addict, and she had to suspend all judgment of him while that was the cornerstone of their relationship.

"It was going to be a hard day for everyone, but I'm pretty sure none of us expected to be mourning anything new tonight." And she might have been mistaken, but she thought she saw a slightly moist glimmer in Alex's eyes. Well, she had sobbed her heart out to the two of them earlier that day, but she didn't expect Alex to be that uninhibited. After all, he was new to this.

"If you want to talk about Wyatt, I'm here," she told him, much as the thought of more torture, bloodshed, and whatever the hell Alex had done to him, made her nauseous. "I'll be here."

Alex nodded, and she watched him collect himself. And she added as a clincher, "we're still not alone. Even though he's gone, I think some kind of higher power made him deliver a message to us today." She didn't buy into much of the religious aspect of NA, but this couldn't possibly have been a coincidence.

"Maybe," Alex acknowledged, and he moved closer to her so they really were sitting side by side, and she was strangely reminded of her times out here with Michael. "We owe him, don't we? And we can't really pay that debt."

"The program's not about owing people. It's about mutually helping each other. For all we know, that meeting we had earlier is what gave Brad the courage to do what he did. For better or for worse. I just hope he knew how he helped us before, when he made the decision to stay behind in the tunnel."

"I'd like to think he did," Alex replied.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference," she spoke softly.

"I think he'd want you to say that now."

"Yeah, I think he would."


End file.
